Disaster Drill Helps East Region Prepare for the Worst

When Super Storm Sandy hit the east coast in 2011, Backus and Windham Hospitals were impacted — but not to the degree that other hospitals were.
For example, Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan was forced to evacuate more than 700 patients in a matter of hours because of flooding, the potential of losing power and eventually running out of water.
To prepare for that potential here in the East Region, Backus held an evacuation drill Monday to test our ability to evacuate patients. The full-day event organized by Regional Manager of Emergency Preparedness Patrick Turek included enacting the emergency operations plan, opening the incident command center and moving and tracking paper patients and actors using “Med Sleds” from patient floors to main lobby conference room holding areas, before they would be theoretically taken by ambulance to other facilities.
While on the surface moving patients from the floors to the conference rooms might seem easy, in a true emergency there are many issues, including ensuring that patients are tracked, deciding which patients are moved first, caring for them once they reach the holding area, alerting family members, handling the media, communicating with staff, working with community partners and assembling and utilizing a labor pool.
The drill was an enormous success, highlighting many strengths and areas for improvement. These lessons learned — which included realizing that more staff training is needed to use hand held radios and that there are more community resources available than we realize — were discussed during a debriefing following the evacuation, and a report and action plan will be created.
Vice President of Clinical Services and Operations Cary Trantalis, RN, MSN, praised Incident Commander Whitney Bundy and everyone who participated in the drill, which she said is an important part of Backus and Windham hospitals’ ongoing efforts to be prepared for when, not if, the next disaster strikes. She also thanked the region’s community partners that participated, including the Uncas Health District, local fire departments, American Ambulance, the Department of Public Health and others.
“I am very proud of our team,” Trantalis said. “You took this seriously, worked together, educated and shared information with one another. You did a lot of really great work that I have no doubt will pay off in the future. Thank you for your efforts.”